- Appeals court tosses sentence of Colorado elections clerk
Source: United Press International
“A Colorado appeals court on Thursday threw out the sentence of Tina Peters, a former elections clerk, who was convicted in an election data case. Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison in August 2024 on seven of the 10 counts for which she was charged. She allowed an unauthorized person to make copies of voting machine hard drives that included classified information. The data from those drives was then leaked online by conspiracy theorists who falsely said it proved President Donald Trump correct in his assertion that the 2020 election was ‘stolen.’ Trump later pardoned Peters, but Colorado officials said he has no power to do so because she was convicted by the state. … The judges of the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that District Judge Matthew Barrett wrongfully used Peters’ beliefs and promotion of election fraud conspiracy theories in his sentencing.” (04/02/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/04/02/tina-peters-sentence-overturned/6531775153086/
- VT: Labor Board Orders State to End Return-To-Office Requirement for Employees
Source: US News & World Report
“The Vermont Labor Relations Board has ordered that Gov. Phil Scott’s administration ‘rescind’ a controversial requirement that state employees return to their physical offices three days per week. The board, a non-judicial body that makes decisions on the labor grievances of state employees, said in its decision Wednesday that the state has ‘refused to bargain in good faith and interfered with employees’ exercise of rights’ in requiring in-person work. Scott called the decision ‘disappointing, but not surprising’ in his weekly press conference Wednesday, and said the board’s membership is ‘weighted towards labor.'” (04/02/26)
- Russia: Court sentences German artist in absentia for mocking Putin
Source: ABC News
“A German artist who created carnival displays mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin was sentenced in absentia on Thursday to 8 1/2 years in prison by a court In Moscow. Jacques Tilly was convicted on charges of spreading false information about the Russian military and insulting religious feelings. Carnival parades in Germany are famed for their floats mocking a wide variety of domestic and global political figures, and Putin has frequently been a target. Tilly, 62, has been designing and building floats for Düsseldorf’s Carnival parade — one of Germany’s best-known — since 1984. In recent years, his designs have depicted Putin scrubbing himself in a bathtub filled with blood and painted in the colors of the Ukraine flag, while another featured a red-faced Putin biting into Ukraine, which was decorated with the words ‘Choke on it!'” (04/02/26)
- US mortgage rates climb for fifth straight week
Source: CNN
“Average US mortgage rates climbed again for the fifth week in a row, making homebuying more expensive than it was just a few weeks ago, before the outbreak of war with Iran. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.46% this week, jumping from 6.38% the previous week and reaching the highest level in seven months, according to Freddie Mac. The rise may be unwelcome news for those hoping to buy a home this spring, typically the busiest time of year for the housing market. During the last week of February, before the US-Israeli attack on Iran, the average 30-year mortgage rate was 5.98%.” (04/02/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/02/economy/us-mortgage-rates-iran
- Trump regime prepares up to 100% pharmaceutical tariffs on American buyers of some imported drugs
Source: CNBC
“The Trump administration is preparing to impose new tariffs on [American buyers of] branded drugs from pharmaceutical companies that have not struck landmark deals with the president to lower their U.S. drug prices, CNBC has learned. [American buyers of] Patented medications and their active ingredients would be hit with a 100% tariff, according to a draft of the document obtained by CNBC. But there are pathways for drugmakers to reduce or avoid the levies [on American buyers] if they move their manufacturing to the U.S. or are negotiating deals with the administration. … The plan would represent another shift in Trump’s aggressive trade strategy, more than a month after the Supreme Court struck down the global levies he imposed in 2025, which excluded the pharmaceutical industry.” (04/02/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/02/trump-pharmaceutical-tariffs-100percent.html
- Azerbaijan: Court Upholds Conviction of Political Prisoner, Lawyer Says
Source: US News & World Reports
“The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan on Thursday rejected an appeal by a prominent opposition politician who is serving a nine-year prison sentence, his lawyer told Reuters. Tofig Yagublu, 65, is a member of the opposition Musavat party and has been jailed numerous times over three decades for protesting against the government of the South Caucasus country. Yagublu was arrested in December 2023 and convicted in March last year of fraud and document forgery. His supporters say the case is politically motivated, while the authorities maintain he was rightly convicted of crimes.” (04/02/26)
- Arizona woman who went missing “without a trace” 32 years ago found alive
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“A woman in Arizona who went missing 32 years ago, when she was just 13 years old, has been found alive, authorities said this week. Christina Marie Plante was reported missing in May 1994 from Star Valley, Arizona, after she ‘vanished without a trace from her community,’ according to a statement released on Wednesday by the Gila county sheriff’s office. … At the time, her disappearance prompted an extensive search effort …. 32 years after her disappearance, the sheriff’s office announced on Wednesday that Plante had been ‘located alive.’ Investigators said that they have ‘confirmed her identify, and her status as a missing person has been officially resolved.’ The sheriff’s office added that ‘out of respect for Christina’s privacy and well-being, additional details will not be released at this time.'” (04/02/26)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/02/arizona-missing-woman-found-alive-32-years-later
- ICC moves ahead with disciplinary proceedings against chief prosecutor Khan
Source: The New Arab [UK]
“ICC member states have voted to pursue disciplinary proceedings against Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan after receiving reports regarding sexual assault allegations against him, according to a Wall Street Journal report. In a vote on Wednesday by a core group of member states, 15 voted in favour, two abstained and four voted against moving forward with the process, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Khan, who investigates war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, has taken leave of absence pending an inquiry into accusations of non-consensual sexual interaction with a lawyer in his office. He rejects any allegations of wrongdoing.” (04/02/26)
https://www.newarab.com/news/icc-moves-forward-case-against-chief-prosecutor-khan
- Cloudflare launches EmDash — the “spiritual successor” that wants to take on WordPress
Source: TechRadar
“Cloudflare has lifted the wraps off EmDash, a new open source CMS that it deems to be the ‘spiritual successor’ to WordPress. The company explained an overwhelming majority (96%) of WordPress vulnerabilities come from plugins, which have full access to the database and filesystem, and run in the same environment as the core code without any isolation. To tackle this, Cloudflare is putting each EmDash plugin in an isolated sandbox, called Dynamic Workers, with plugins having to declare exactly which permission it needs upfront.” (04/02/26)
- Refugee’s death after abduction, release by US immigration authorities ruled homicide
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“The death in the US of ‘nearly blind’ refugee Nurul Amin Shah Alam, who was found outdoors in freezing temperatures days after his release from federal immigration custody, has been ruled a homicide in New York state. The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office said Shah Alam’s death in the city of Buffalo was caused by ‘complications of a perforated duodenal ulcer, precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration.’ The designation of homicide may include negligent acts or omissions, the local officials said. It does not imply intent to cause harm or death, or indicate criminality. In response, a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman told the BBC it was ‘another hoax being peddled by the media and sanctuary politicians to demonise our law enforcement.'” (04/02/26)
- US jobless aid filings fall to 202,000 as layoffs remain low despite uncertainty of Iran war
Source: WTOP News
“U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell last week as layoffs remain sparse despite a softening labor market and rising energy costs due to the Iran war. The number of Americans applying for jobless aid for the week ending March 28 fell by 9,000 to 202,000 from the previous week’s 211,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 212,000 new filings analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting and within the range of the past several years. Filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.” (04/02/26)
- Russia plans to send second oil tanker to Cuba
Source: SFGate
“Russia plans to send a second oil tanker to Cuba, the country’s energy minister said Thursday, citing the island’s ongoing energy blockade and reiterating Russia’s solidarity with the troubled Caribbean nation. The announcement comes just two days after sanctioned Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin docked at the Cuban port of Matanzas laden with 730,000 barrels of oil, marking the first time in three months that an oil tanker reached the island. Experts have said that shipment could produce about 180,000 barrels of diesel, enough to feed Cuba’s daily demand for nine or 10 days.” (04/02/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/moscow-plans-to-send-2nd-oil-tanker-to-cuba-22185631.php
- US regime lifts sanctions on Venezuela’s Rodriguez amid warming ties
Source: United Press International
“The Trump administration has lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s interim president [sic], Delcy Rodriguez, in the latest sign of warming relations between Washington and Caracas after the U.S. military ousted Venezuela’s former authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro. The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced in a post on its website Wednesday that Rodriguez, 56, had been removed from its Specially Designated Nationals list, unfreezing any assets that may have been under her name in the United States while allowing her to conduct business in the United States and with U.S. persons.” [editor’s note: The administration of which Rodriguez was a member was defeated in last year’s election; legally, she holds no position in Venezuela’s regime – TLK] (04/02/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/04/02/Delcy-Rodriguez-sanctions/4721775114744/
- We must resist the rule of the technocrats
Source: spiked
by Paul O’Connor“From public-health policy to climate change, more and more issues are being removed from public control and handed to ostensibly neutral specialists. Though they may maintain a façade of democratic procedure, today’s Western societies are largely governed by an alliance between expert knowledge and managerial power. They would be more accurately described by the term ‘technocracy.’ Cast your mind back to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was not an aberration, but a revelation. … We might, understandably, be inclined to regard the Covid lockdowns as a bad memory – something best forgotten. But that would be a mistake. The state overreach, censorship, obsession with risk and distrust in people’s ability to make their own decisions were not exceptions to the norm, but the new norm.” (04/02/26)
- A Year After “Liberation Day,” Trump’s Tariffs Will Never Be Legitimate Without a Vote in Congress
Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm“There is no doubt that Congress has traded away a lot of its authority over trade policy in the past few decades. But, as the Trump administration is now learning, those policies do not allow for the open-ended, anything-goes approach that Trump wants to take. The IEEPA tariffs were tripped up by the plain text of the underlying law, which courts at all levels agreed did not include the power to tariff. The new Section 122 tariffs face a similar legal challenge over the administration’s attempt to read broad powers into a narrowly tailored law. There is an easy solution to all this. Put a tariff bill in front of Congress. Of course, there is an equally obvious reason why Trump has refused to do that. It would be unlikely to pass.” [editor’s note: And even if it did pass, taxation would still be theft – TLK] (04/02/26)
- The war for oil that backfired: Trump’s “energy dominance” illusion
Source: The Hill
by Brahma Chellaney“When President Trump launched his war on Iran, attention fixed on missiles, drones and the risks of escalation. The real story lay elsewhere: a grandiose and ultimately reckless vision of American ‘energy dominance’ that helped propel Washington into war. This was not simply a security decision, but an economic and ideological gamble rooted in Trump’s long-held belief that U.S. control over international energy flows would translate into global geopolitical supremacy and arrest America’s relative decline. In his second term, that belief hardened into doctrine. But in Iran, it collided with reality.” (04/02/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5810758-the-war-for-oil-that-backfired/
- Afroman Can’t Beat Qualified Immunity
Source: Downsize DC
by Jim Babka“Afroman can’t beat qualified immunity, and neither can you. But wait, didn’t he win his case? That’s what all the headlines are saying. Yes. He overcame his defamation case. It’s a great victory for free speech. But before that case ever went to trial, he lost a fight that few are talking about. … He wanted the deputies held accountable for the damage they did to his home: the broken door, the smashed gate, the detached cameras, and the $400 in cash that went ‘missing’ during the raid. The judge dismissed his claims. No jury. No hearing. Just gone. Think about that. The deputies got a full jury trial over hurt feelings from a music video. But … Afroman couldn’t get a hearing over a broken door and ‘missing’ money.” (04/02/26)
- Unmasking the Paramilitary Agents Behind Trump’s Violent Immigration Crackdown
Source: Wired
by Ali Winston & Maddy Varner“A WIRED analysis of DHS records identified dozens of specialized federal agents who used force against US civilians during the largest known deployment of its kind in US history.” (04/02/26)
- The Empire Is Losing Its Ability To Hide Its Ugly Nature
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“It used to be hard to help westerners see the depravity of the US empire. Now it’s just right in everyone’s face with raw genocide footage and insanely evil warmongering of direct economic consequence. It took a lot of work to help the average westerner understand that NATO aggressions actively provoked the war in Ukraine, or that western interventionism played a major role in the violence and chaos in Syria, or that US economic warfare was largely responsible for the suffering of Cubans and Venezuelans. The murderous savagery of the empire was hidden behind layers of obfuscation, allowing the propagandists to frame the western power structure as a passive witness to the abuses of foreign regimes. Now the propagandists have very little to work with, so those obfuscations can no longer take place.” (04/02/26)
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/04/02/the-empire-is-losing-its-ability-to-hide-its-ugly-nature/
- UK government admits the obvious: Free countries shouldn’t police legal speech
Source: Expression
by Sarah McLaughlin“With an act designated as ‘non-crime,’ you might reasonably expect the role for law enforcement to be quite limited. No crime means no cops … right? For years, though, the United Kingdom has allowed a system of police intervention and record-keeping over ‘non-crime hate incidents’ — including legal speech — to flourish. But new Home Office guidance intends to ‘prevent police from recording lawful free speech.’ Will this signal a new step forward for the UK? It’s complicated.” (04/02/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/uk-government-admits-the-obvious
- Removing a tyrant is easy. Changing a regime is hard.
Source: Washington Post
by Keith B Richburg“I’ve seen my share of dictatorships fall apart after decapitation. I saw it in Haiti, where I began my foreign reporting career covering the fall of ‘president-for-life’ Jean-Claude ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier …. I witnessed the chaos left behind in Somalia following the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, is still a partially failed state years after Mobutu Sese Seko was run out. When those dictatorial regimes collapsed, it’s because the dictator had hollowed out all the normal organs of a state. Because power was concentrated into one man’s hands, all other institutions just atrophied. But more often than not, authoritarian regimes are deeply institutionalized. … They can survive the removal of the leader because the regime is decentralized, built to endure and buttressed by a sprawling elite whose power and wealth depend on the system’s survival.” (04/02/26)
- Print Blocking is Anti-Consumer
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation
by Rory Mir“[3D printers] come in many forms and can construct nearly any shape with a variety of materials. This has made them absolutely crucial for anything from life-saving medical equipment, to little Iron Man helmets for cats, to everyday repairs. … Unfortunately some state legislators are looking to repeat old mistakes by demanding printer vendors install an enshittification switch. In the U.S, three states have recently proposed that commercial 3D-printer manufacturers must ensure their printers only work with their software, and are responsible for checking each print for forbidden shapes — for now, any shape vendors consider too gun-like.” (04/02/26)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/print-blocking-anti-consumer-permission-print-part-1
- Let’s Be Very Clear: Trump’s Iran War Is Making You Poorer
Source: Beat the Press
by Dean Baker“Our Secretary of Defense (or War) Pete Hegseth seems to be having a really great time killing people in Iran, but his live action video games come at a big cost, not just in lives, but in budget dollars. To be clear, the main reason to be opposed to this pointless war is its impact on the people of Iran and elsewhere in the region. But it also has a huge economic cost that is seriously underappreciated. The short-term cost is the shortage of oil, natural gas, fertilizers, and other items that would ordinarily travel through the Straits of Hormuz. This shortage has already sent prices of many items soaring. The impact is not just on the goods themselves, but there is a large secondary impact due to higher shipping costs, and if fertilizer supplies are not resumed soon, higher food prices, due to lower crop yields.” (04/02/26)
https://cepr.net/publications/lesson-from-the-iran-war-42765-making-enemies-makes-us-poorer/
- Would conscious AI also cling to its sense of self?
Source: Freedom and Flourishing
by Winton Bates“We do not yet know whether AI will develop a sense of self. We can be confident, however, that if an AI system does develop a sense of self, it will be because it serves a useful purpose for that system. That suggests to me that any intelligent system that has evolved to have a sense of self is likely to have good reasons to cling to it. I refer to AI to invite readers to ponder the motivations that humans have to cling to their individual identity rather than seeking to dissolve it or escape from it.” (04/02/26)
https://www.freedomandflourishing.com/2026/04/would-conscious-ai-also-cling-to-its.html
- Trump Betrayed His Own National Security Strategy
Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama“It’s a conceit of foreign policy intellectuals to try to infer from statements and events a consistent doctrine underlying an administration’s activities. It should be clear by now that there is no such thing as a Trump doctrine. The administration itself tried to articulate such a doctrine last November when it went through the ritual of producing a National Security Strategy for the second Trump term. It’s clear today that that strategy document bears no relationship to actual administration foreign policy.” (04/02/26)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/theres-no-such-thing-as-the-trump
- Regime Change
Source: Cobden Centre
by Tim Price“The petrodollar, per Grok, refers to U.S. dollars earned by oil-exporting countries (primarily OPEC members, plus others like Russia and Norway) from crude oil exports. It is not a separate currency but simply dollars received in payment for oil. The term also describes the broader petrodollar system: the longstanding global practice of pricing and trading most international oil in U.S. dollars, which creates sustained worldwide demand for the dollar. … The decision by the West to freeze Russia’s foreign reserves (including US dollars and US Treasury bonds) was the first nail in the coffin for the dollar, obliging sovereign countries to favour stateless assets such as gold. The decision by the US to join Israel in military adventuring against Iran will likely prove the first nail in the coffin for the petrodollar (and similarly boost prospects for the likes of gold over the medium term).” (04/02/26)
- Sanity [sic] must be restored [sic] to birthright citizenship
Source: Fox News
by Mike Davis“At the core of our sovereignty is the right to determine who is entitled to citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment grants citizenship to people born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a case concerning the lawfulness of President Trump’s commonsense executive order that restores the original understanding of birthright citizenship.” [editor’s note: Even before the 14th Amendment, the US practiced birthright citizenship from its founding, as did it its parent country. “Born here, citizen here” IS the original understanding – TLK] (04/02/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mike-davis-sanity-must-restored-birthright-citizenship
- The Intellectual Right Is Mad at the Mess It’s Made
Source: The Atlantic
by Ali Breland“Conservatives are criticizing influencers for going too far.” (04/02/26)
- Trump’s Mercurial, Constantly Changing Import Taxes Took American Businesses on a Wild Ride
Source: Reason
by Jacob Sullum“There was little rhyme or reason to the president’s ’emergency’ tariffs, which fluctuated wildly depending on his mood.” (04/02/26)
- Anarchists and Crime
Source: Isonomia Quarterly
by Katrina Gulliver“The anarchist ‘movement’ (if we could apply such a concept to a decentralized group) was the beginning of modern global terrorism. The idea that killing, bombing, were a tactic to bring adversaries to the negotiating table, in the age of mass media, was a novel concept, in the late nineteenth century. It would be a model followed by various political sects to come. But anarchists did not want negotiations.” (04/02/26)
- Anti-Birthright Escalation a Cautionary Tale for the US
Source: Common Dreams
by Jordan Liz“On April 1, the Supreme Court began hearing arguments in Trump v. Barbara, a class-action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s executive order to ban birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants. Every lower court that has ruled on this issue thus far has found this executive order to be straightforwardly unconstitutional — and they are correct. The 14th Amendment is clear: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.'” (04/02/26)
- Trump Is Serious About Accepting a Humiliating Defeat
Source: The Contrarian
by Jennifer Rubin“Donald Trump started an unconstitutional, reckless war without goals and with minimal planning. He failed to anticipate Iran’s entirely predictable response. No one, therefore, should be surprised that the war may end with the United States and its allies (or, rather, countries that used to be allies) worse off than when the war started.” (04/02/26)
https://www.contrariannews.org/p/trump-is-serious-about-accepting
- Who Gets to Block the Sun?
Source: The Atlantic
by Alexander C Kaufman“The world’s first major private geoengineering start-up must have known it’d have skeptics. The basic premise — dimming the sun to artificially cool the planet — has been called reckless by scientists and climate advocates; military analysts have said it has real security risks. (Don’t even get conspiracy theorists started.) Still, Stardust Solutions, an American-Israeli company planning to build a solar-reflecting system in the next few years, has enough fans that it raised $60 million in 2025. Now it’s trying to bring around the public and ease concerns over a technology for which its founders would prefer there wasn’t any conceivable global need.” (04/02/26)
- From Content to Design
Soure: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes“Brussels has accused TikTok of adopting an addictive design and is demanding changes, extending the Digital Services Act (DSA) from a content regulator to the design of platforms themselves. Motivations aside, such a move would deepen the micromanagement of Europeans’ digital lives, while such regulatory reach increasingly imposes standards that end up shaping technology worldwide. For years, the European Union (EU) has been engaged in a battle against large technology companies. Through regulations such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Brussels has created a complex, bureaucratic, and punitive regulatory environment that makes it difficult for truly competitive European tech companies to emerge and grow.” (04/02/26)
- Seducing People When It Comes to War
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“In a non-elected dictatorship, the dictator doesn’t need to secure anyone’s consent to initiate a war. He simply initiates it on his own by ordering his military to attack another country. It’s possible, of course, to have a dictatorship within a democratic form of government. Dictatorship depends on the extent of power wielded by the ruler, not by how he got to be ruler. Thus, a democratically elected ruler can end up wielding and exercising the same types of omnipotent, totalitarian powers as an unelected dictator who has simply taken power by force. In a democracy, however, a ruler must seduce the citizenry into supporting the war, especially since war inevitably involves the destruction of people’s own freedom at the hands of their own government.” (04/02/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/04/02/seducing-people-when-it-comes-to-war/
- Abuser Politics: Christian Male Supremacists Want Women to Shut Up
Source: Liberal Currents
by Alan Elrod“The desire for quiet women — really for silent women — in every public forum is neither about adherence to Biblical truth nor the revelation of natural law.” (04/02/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/abuser-politics-christian-male-supremacists-want-women-to-shut-up/
- Against Fairness?
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Nah, it’s just Democrats who think that, because I won’t vote for their proposed constitutional amendment allowing the legislature to redraw my state’s congressional districts. The official question on the April 21 ballot reads: ‘Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to allow the General Assembly to temporarily adopt new congressional districts to restore fairness in the upcoming elections, while ensuring Virginia’s standard redistricting process resumes for all future redistricting after the 2030 census?’ What, exactly, is ‘fair’ about this amendment?” (04/02/26)
- Throw Iran to the Wolves
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter“First off, I’m writing this before President Donald Trump speaks to the nation tonight, where I expect him to declare victory and announce something about when we’ll be done in Iran. Good. That doesn’t change my opinion about what comes next, so the submission deadline does not negate what follows. The Iranian regime wants to die; help them with that. Whatever shell of a government is left is launching rockets randomly at its neighbors, which indicates they’d rather fight until they’re dead than reconstitute itself into something that isn’t threatening to the rest of the world, so we should facilitate that end. How do we do that? Well, we’ve weakened them to the point that the people of Iran could rise and rip them apart – pull a Mussolini and string up their oppressors.” (04/02/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2026/04/02/throw-iran-to-the-wolves-n2673811
- You Can’t Plan the Next Play-Doh: Unexpected Discovery Drives Tomorrow’s Jobs
Source: The Daily Economy
by Kimberlee Josephson“A failed wallpaper cleaner became a global toy — and a case study in job creation. Consumer tastes, not policy prescriptions, continually reinvent our economy.” (04/02/26)
- The Behemoth of Global Corruption Is an Extension of Ourselves
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell“Hard times. Emerging from an apparently engineered pandemic, now in another war for ephemeral reasons, a resultant economic crisis that is exacerbating unmanageable debt, we find ethnic cleansing and inter-ethnic hatred are increasingly back in vogue. It’s easy to imagine a nefarious program is being orchestrated by a nasty and entrenched elite, aiming to plunder and enslave the rest of us. Such an idea is clearly not baseless, but nonetheless completely misleading in the solutions it suggests. ‘If only we could jail them, or have a Nuremberg Two, things would be better …’ However, Nuremberg One did not stop ethnic cleansing, targeting of religious groups, wars and mass death based on straight-out lies, or mass medical coercion for power and money. A couple of obvious reasons stand out for this.” (04/02/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/the-behemoth-of-global-corruption-is-an-extension-of-ourselves/
- Letter to the People of the USA
Source: CounterPunch
by Masoud Pezeshkian, President, Islamic Republic of Iran“The Iranian people harbor no enmity toward other nations, including the people of America, Europe, or neighboring countries. Even in the face of repeated foreign interventions and pressures throughout their proud history, Iranians have consistently drawn a clear distinction between governments and the peoples they govern. This is a deeply rooted principle in Iranian culture and collective consciousness — not a temporary political stance. For this reason, portraying Iran as a threat is neither consistent with historical reality nor with present-day observable facts. Such a perception is the product of political and economic whims of the powerful — the need to manufacture an enemy in order to justify pressure, maintain military dominance, sustain the arms industry, and control strategic markets. In such an environment, if a threat does not exist, it is invented.” (04/02/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/02/letter-to-the-people-of-the-usa/
- East Asia Foots the Bill For Washington’s Iran War
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Joseph Solis-Mullen“As the United States and Israel press their war of aggression against Iran — now entering its second month — attention has understandably focused on the carnage in the Middle East. Yet with the Strait of Hormuz effectively blockaded and global energy markets in turmoil, the conflict’s ripples extend far beyond the Persian Gulf. In East Asia, America’s closest treaty allies, Japan and South Korea, are absorbing punishing economic shocks from their dependence on Middle Eastern oil, while Washington’s diversion of military assets has left them feeling exposed and annoyed. Meanwhile, Beijing, Washington’s bete noire, looks on with barely concealed satisfaction, its state media churning out satirical videos that mock yet another American entanglement in the region’s endless conflicts. For those who have long warned that empire abroad undermines security and prosperity at home, the spectacle offers a textbook case of the predictable, if unintended, costs of interventionism.” (04/02/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/east-asia-foots-the-bill-for-washingtons-iran-war
- Harvey Mansfield’s Master Class
Source: Law & Liberty
by Rachel Mackey“The Harvard professor’s new book is an invitation to escape history through liberal education.” (04/02/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/harvey-mansfields-master-class/
- The FBI’s FOIA Blacklist
Source: Antiwar.com
by Patrick Eddington“The Freedom of Information Act was designed to empower citizens to hold their government accountable. But evidence suggests the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has quietly adopted a practice that turns that principle on its head: labeling some of the people who file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as ‘vexsome.’ In effect, the agency has created a FOIA-specific blacklist. Yet when asked, it denies having done so.” (04/02/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/patrick_eddington/2026/04/01/the-fbis-foia-blacklist
- For Passover: Four Questions Trump’s Iran War Speech Didn’t Answer
Source: The American Prospect
by Harold Meyerson“As America is no stranger to war, it’s also no stranger to presidential addresses that justify and report on the wars then ongoing. No matter whether we’re winning or losing, first-strikers or get-struck-firsters, advancing or just holding the line, every previous wartime president has managed to stay on topic. But not Donald Trump. His Wednesday night speech was notable only in that he repeatedly strayed off topic. … Even granting that the topic of every Trump speech is Trump, that theme plays least well in an address supposedly intended to convince his fellow citizens that the course on which he’s set the nation is worth the sacrifices of combat and the travails (in this case, economic) of the home front.” (04/02/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/04/02/for-passover-4-questions-trumps-iran-war-speech-didnt-answer/
- The Pentagon’s “Orwellian” Case Against Anthropic
Source: Washington Monthly
by Matt Watkins“A federal judge sided with the artificial intelligence company’s argument that the government violated its right to free speech, but the dispute is far from over.” (04/02/26)
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/04/02/the-pentagons-orwellian-case-against-anthropic/
- Liberty Beyond “Rational Control”
Source: Law & Liberty
by Daniel J Mahoney“[Harvey] Mansfield is a political scientist as much as a political philosopher, an Aristotelian who never disparages moral virtue, political nobility, or patriotic attachment to a decent and free political order such as the United States. As one, he has repeatedly instructed fellow political scientists to care more about politics as the distinctively human realm than about narrow ‘methodological’ concerns that risk obscuring the reality and true stakes of human and political life. Mansfield has never been remotely tempted to identify the theoretical life with Epicurean disdain for the dignity and grandeur of the political vocation. At the same time, he is perfectly immune to the moralism that animates so many academics and intellectuals today.” (04/02/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/liberty-beyond-rational-control/
- Why Presidents Don’t Care About Inflation as Much as You Do
Source: The Dispatch
by Jessica Riedl“For the past four years, inflation has consistently polled as voters’ top economic concern—and often top concern overall. Nevertheless, President Joe Biden steadfastly ignored those concerns and pursued an inflationary agenda until it cost his party the White House. Then, after Trump campaigned on ending ‘Bidenflation,’ he re-entered the White House and immediately unleashed his own aggressively inflationary agenda — tariffs, tax cuts, spending expansions, immigration deportations, and demands for Federal Reserve rate cuts. … presidents invariably decide to focus on offering tangible benefits and roll the dice on any macroeconomic consequences.” (04/02/26)
- The Fifth Column, episode 551
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Fifth Column marks ten years with a live, loose, alcohol-assisted celebration featuring Thor Halvorssen, Pete Meijer, Olivia Reingold, Nick Gillespie, and Nancy Rommelmann, with stops along the way for Venezuela, culture war absurdity, Jewish identity, sexual politics, old stories, new grievances, and the usual refusal to keep anything on the rails.” (04/02/26)
- Political Theater, 04/02/26
Source: Roll Call
“How much does the Homeland Security shutdown matter to the public?” (04/02/26)
https://chrt.fm/track/D3F8DG/traffic.megaphone.fm/FISCAL4524511184.mp3
- The Libertarian Angle, 04/02/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Tyranny of the TSA.” (04/02/26)
- Radio Atlantic, 04/02/26
Source: The Atlantic
“The Manosphere Feels Betrayed.” (04/02/26)
https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/2026/04/the-manosphere-feels-betrayed/686658/
- Bulwark Takes, 04/02/26
Source: The Bulwark
“BREAKING: Trump Fires Pam Bondi.” (04/02/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 04/02/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Did You Watch Trump’s Speech? How Did He Do?” (04/02/26)
- The Daily, 04/02/26
Source: New York Times
“The Supreme Court Takes On Birthright Citizenship.” (04/02/26)
- Capital Record, episode 292
Source: National Review
“It Has to Be Real” (04/02/26)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/it-has-to-be-real/
- Rising, 04/02/26
Source: The Hill
“It’s over for NATO? Marco Rubio explains why U.S. is done!” ()4/02/26)
- Cato Daily Podcast, 04/02/26
Source: Cato Institute
“The Great Political Realignment.” (04/02/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/great-political-realignment
- Underthrow Podcast, 04/02/26
Source: Underthrow
“The Freedom Lover’s Dilemma.” (04/02/26)
https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-freedom-lovers-dilemma
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 04/02/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Spirals Into Rage as Brutal Poll Hits and Legal Losses Pile Up.” (04/02/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/208520/trump-spirals-rage-brutal-poll-hits-legal-losses-pile
- The Headlines, 04/02/26
Source: New York Times
“Trump Says Strait of Hormuz Is Not America’s Problem, and How Musk May Get Richer.” (04/02/26)
- Politico Playbook Audio Briefing, 04/02/26
Source: Politico
“20 minutes, few answers: Trump addresses the nation on Iran.” (04/02/26)
- So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast, 04/01/26
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
“Social media = cigarettes?” (04/01/26)
https://www.fire.org/news/podcasts/so-speak-free-speech-podcast/social-media-cigarettes